Dancing for Mark - Mark Morris Dance Group

Dance Magazine, June, 1998 by Nanette Maxim

Having gained a passion for opera and ballet from her mother, Davidson has some advantage when Morris delves into the world of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century operas, such as Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, which the company performs June 24-27 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Platee. Morris requires all the dancers to study libretti and listen intently to recordings. Fehlandt, whose tastes at home ran more toward Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday, has learned to share Morris's enthusiasm for early music--not to mention Michelle Shocked (used in Home), Lou Harrison (Grand Duo, Strict Songs, Rhymes with Silver), and Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys (Going Away Party). Morris's wide-ranging musicality and his insistence on live music have, the dancers say, kept them challenged and interested. All these shared sensibilities and their willingness to explore have led Morris to trust them with expanded responsibilities within the company. Fehlandt stages his work for such companies as San Francisco Ballet, and both women reconstruct repertory dances for the group and serve as rehearsal directors.

Neither dancer has restricted herself to Morris's aesthetic. Both study ballet with Jocelyn Lorenz, and Fehlandt adds Lynn Simonson's modem jazz class ("A revelation," she says), Pilates-based exercises, and Iyengar yoga. Davidson, who is also a firm believer in cross-training, includes Pilates-based exercises, Alexander technique, swimming, and yoga in her regimen. When they get to rehearsals, however, they belong to Mark. "Tina and Ruth are always warmed up and ready to work," says Morris. And he approves of his seasoned dancers studying outside of his studio: "That's the grown-up thing."

Over the years, much has been made in the press of the fact that Morris doesn't subscribe to the dancer-as-sylph school of thought. "We're big-boned; we have big muscles," says Davidson with a grin. "We used to be known as the `big butt dance company,' and that's what people come to see. So we've got to keep the weight up." Morris, citing the importance of a 1993 Self magazine piece on the "brave new body" that featured Davidson and Fehlandt, declares extreme thinness "a crime against women that I won't perpetrate. Tina and Ruth are incredibly strong and supple. They exist as dancers as much as Suzanne Farrell and Darci Kistler--it's been a quiet revolution that's happened with me."

As senior dancers in the group, they may be undergoing personal revolutions. Says Morris, "Tina and Ruth get better and better--more versatile, more interesting, more depth; it's maturation." For Davidson, who is the first to admit that in her pull-out-all-the-stops early days she used to "fall down a lot," maturity,means simplifying her life, learning how to avoid distraction from her art, and gaining control of her body. Fehlandt used to carry her emotional baggage into the studio, and Morris would tell her, "Dance your nervous breakdown, Tina. Dance it." She says, "I'm smarter now, and I understand subtlety." Fehlandt also attributes her more centered approach to the emotional support she receives from her husband, Nathaniel Lee, who is a dancer and choreographer.